


warmth

by inlemoon



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 17:07:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12635409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlemoon/pseuds/inlemoon
Summary: He thought of her again, of her brilliant-fragile eyes, of the long face behind the mask. Thought of the anxious way she picked her fingers, ragged with hangnails and excess skin and occasionally bitten to the point of blood.





	warmth

_Have you heard the stories of the Hero?_

In crowded taverns on rainy, mud-smeared nights like this Link would sometimes hear conversation turn to rumors of a golden young lad fighting to set the kingdom right. They’d say this hero fought in the name of the crown and from the righteousness of his heart–although as liquor ran and bustles loosened and laughter grew in pitch, the rumors usually turned to bawdy songs of romance. Tonight was no different, the drunks singing silly and wrong– so very  _wrong_ – of how this hero fought for the love and hand of the exiled Princess Zelda. He couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“This I know, from sources true–there is to be a wedding, with a feast for all the world! They will serve caviar and peafowl, and the grandest,  _sweetest_ cake–”

“A  _wedding,_ eh?” someone piped up, skeptical, and Link felt a rush of gratitude, “Let me  _guess_ , she will wear white, with–”

“Fragrant lilies in her hair,” the first confirmed, “And he will look so handsome, in his shining silver armor, a plume of phoenix in his helmet–”

“And from just  _whom_ do you–”

_“Sources true.”_

It always gave Link a whirling headache. He could tear up the trees or drain the waters or raze the mountains and was still certain he would never find the Princess. It had been months–ah,  _years_ –since he’d seen her last, and he didn’t even know what she  _looked_ like now. Much less if she was someone he might want to love. Much less if he’d don feathers for her sake.

He drained his beer and called to the bartendress for a mug of something darker. Her eyes flashed with relief, and she nodded to him as she left to fetch it, abruptly ending her conversation with two Gerudo on the other side of the bar.

A group of carpenters and blacksmiths burst through the door, the stormy skies crackling behind them as they grinned and called to their friends across the room. Link watched as they joined the ruckus, and wondered if they’d add their voices to all the chatter, if in their heads they’d married him off to a girl he did not know. He imagined all their ridiculous fancies swelling up and splitting the tavern in two, exploding outward onto the streets and spilling them out in a booze-drenched deluge. Mostly, he imagined they talked about something besides his  romantic life.

Because Link did not love Zelda. He  _had_ known her once, a whip-smart, wide-eyed girl, long before the loss of so many friends. But that was before he pulled the sword, before Ganondorf took over, and before he knew of…

In their earliest days when he still climbed trees in the Lost Woods looking for a friend he knew he would not find, Sheik followed him closely, intervening at the first hint of trouble.  To this day he still could hear the sound of the clean crack of her fist on bone, her swift and elegant twist of a Wolfos’ leg as her dagger sank into another dog’s skull, and her subsequent yelling as she pointed furiously to his sword deposited on the far side of the forest glade. One day’s giddy hunting lesson later he learned to snap joints with his bare hands, not quite par to her but good enough.  _Never leave your weapons,_  she gasped that night, hips flush to his, stimulated. Somewhere, nearby, hidden, rosy fairies clinked their wings and wind curled about the branches of the forest trees.

“Here’s your drink.” The bartendress broke through his thoughts as she slid his mug to him and pulled a dish rag from under the bartop.

“Think it’s true?” She asked, nodding towards the tables of people. “Think there’s a hero out there?“

Link coughed, and hunched over his mug before tipping it into his mouth. It was black and bitter and  _much_ better than the first two (or seven).

“That’s what they say,” he muttered.

“Think he’s captured the Princess’ heart?”

“I think it doesn’t matter.”

“ _Oh_?” The girl leaned forward, the slopes of her breasts curving over her neckline, two pale moons. Link swallowed another gulp, hoping his silence would persuade her to go away.

It didn’t work.

“What  _do_ you think? They’re all so preoccupied with how the Princess will look or how she’ll act–” He quit listening, caught up in the memory of a clever child dressed in rose-colored skirts, eluding her her nursemaid in Castle Town’s market.

“She was pretty as a girl…er, well, so I’ve heard,” he managed. “Probably like that.”

“So, pretty?” She asked, suddenly expectant, eager. “Nothing of the queen she’ll be?”

“I’ve no idea, really,” he said, shrugging. “They say she was smart and kind…I’m sure she’ll do fine.”

“ _Smart_  and  _kind_ won’t rule a kingdom–how could someone who’s been gone for so long even begin to  _know_?”

At first, Link didn’t reply. But eventually his eyes drifted down her arm, to her wrist, to her strong hand clutched around a pouch of Rupees.

“She’s got her ways,” he said, slowly. “People still in the Kingdom, but hidden.”

“Oh, so  _spies_ on her people, hires goons who wait around watching folks until they get a whiff of the right sort of misery, sends them in with promises that they can fix everything if you’d just pass along some gossip or pocket this one paper next time you’re in the collection house, extorts people for–”

“No, she just  _watches,_  she waits, she doesn’t–” He sucked in a breath, “And what would  _you_ do differently? Cobble together an army to send to their slaughter?”

“Not that,” the girl said, so very soft, “But I wouldn’t hide behind my people, either.” Link looked up to her face. She had green eyes, the color of lichens.

Her words stuck in his head.  

Sheik once told him that Zelda’s spies stretched few and far across the country, worked on little motivation but faithfulness to their ruler and desire to bring her back to the throne. He had never picked one out of a crowd, as he had countless Gerudo spies or – even more obviously – Ganon’s Hylian collaborators, whose greed rose from them like steam off of Moblin shit, and he took this as reassurance of their character. Spies who could blend in so seamlessly with ordinary people could not harbor the same cruelty, the same depravity, as he had seen in Ganon’s minions.  

Then again, he thought, he’d seen Sheik’s knives, wondered of the throats they’d met. He groaned aloud in frustration.  At least  _his_ job was simple enough in concept.

He thought of her again, of her brilliant fragile eyes, of the long face behind the mask. Thought of the anxious way she picked her fingers, ragged with hangnails and excess skin and occasionally bitten to the point of blood.

Once, he told her it was a disgusting habit. She unwrapped one digit and bit down out of sheer irritation.

Link cracked a smile. Apart from Navi, the Sheikah’s odd and erratic companionship had probably been the best thing about this entire ordeal. He had come to love her, his shadowy Sheikah friend.

In their present days when the nightmares swirled vivid color in his head, he often found solace in his ocarina, playing variations of the tunes he’d learned. From his thin bedroll he would drift between minuets and nocturnes, folksongs and lullabies, watching as the twilight’s pale purple faded into velvety night.  And sometimes he would look to the trees and see her watching in the dark with eyes brighter than the stars, as if his tunes had summoned her there. Gazes would lock and between them silent words would pass, until his eyelids dropped and he fell to sleep, and she would vanish by the morning.

 _Why don’t you stay around more?_ he asked once. They were at Lake Hylia that day and standing over the fishing hole.

 _You’re too much of a child to understand,_ she said simply, irritably.  _Let’s just go fishing._

 _Bet I catch more than you,_ he shot back as he brandished a baited pole towards her. She said nothing, merely her threw knife into the sparkling pond, speared three fish for dinner. He whistled, she flicked off his admiration–but he saw the way the corners of her eyes crinkled before she turned her head, pale eyelashes fluttering like wings and he knew she smiled.  

Outside, the gales of wind rattled the windows, picked up pebbles and branches and leaves, some of the nails left over from the carpenters’ earlier work on the roof repairs. One of the men produced a hand wrapped in bandages and held it up for everyone to see.

Link stared hard as he unwound the cloth and revealed a deep gnash, stitched crudely with Dodongo-gut thread. “Got careless with the Poes that hang around by the construction at night. So I’ve been moved off to the gardens.” His friends looked fretful, but the workman’s voice remained even. “They  grow much better, now that the mountain’s smoke has cleared.” Calm settled over the other workers, until one shook his head and chuckled ( _oh, Ichiro)_ until they all fell into other topics. And all the conversations of this crowded place meshed into a tangle of lilies and dragons and legends and Poes and princesses, until Link could only think:  _They lie out of fear, but at least the flowers grow._

He brought his head back up, and looked at them again. And smiling to himself, the Hero of Time raised his voice for all to hear.

“They say the hero  _loves_ to fish…”

**Author's Note:**

> beta'ed by vaegtersang
> 
> this is what happens when you go back over your previous work and update it to reflect your current styles


End file.
